A Short Guide to Swiss Syrah (The Wallis Edit)
The question is no longer whether Syrah belongs in Wallis, but what kind of Alpine Syrah the region will make its own.
Volume 24 – Shifting Horizons
January 2026
Dear Readers,
Wine is just fine, thank you.
Is that a hot take? Perhaps. But ask yourself: What are you most excited to explore, taste, and learn about in the year ahead? Is there any shortage of places or bottles you can’t wait to dive into?
It feels like the wine world is in a moment of acceleration, in the best possible sense. It’s hard to keep pace with the emerging crop of winery projects, vineyard outposts, collaborations, bars, and fairs. Wine sales may be down, but wine culture? It’s thriving.
This excitement is the heartbeat of Volume 24: Shifting Horizons. We are ditching the doomerism to focus on the intel and insights that make German-speaking wine so compelling.
We kick off this edition with a journey to the edge: Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut.
These two tiny, fragmented regions are complicated by geography and history (To help orient you, we commissioned a map from cartographer Quentin Sadler.)
But while this complexity explains their relative obscurity, it also hints at the abundant opportunity producers are tapping into today. As TRINK correspondent Rainer Schäfer reports in our cover feature, “Red Dawn,” energy and experimentation abound. Now, the climate is catching up with ambition.
Rainer charts this rise of a flourishing red wine culture, spanning Spätburgunder and Zweigelt to eyebrow-raising expressions of Nebbiolo and Gamay.
A Note on How We Publish: We build our volumes story by story, curating a conversation instead of simply dropping content. Why? Because we believe in savoring over scrolling. Our weekly rhythm gives each feature its moment — and you the time and space to enjoy it.
To new horizons!
Eure
Paula and Valerie
